Acids, bases, atomics


Monday of the week on chemistry began with an introduction to Hydrogen.

After an introduction to isotopes, the lecture moved all too quickly into orbitals and lithium. As I had noted last fall, by the 40 minute mark the students were at the limit of their ability to pay attention, information saturation had been hit. Last spring a tropical system was developing in the waters of Pohnpei. I shifted gears and covered the developing weather system. By the next morning, Thursday, classes had been canceled and part of Kitti were cut off by downed trees.

Thursday April 20, 2023

Trees were also down on the road over the pass into Palikir. 

This pushed the laboratory back a week in spring and dropped the second day of atomics lecture.

Wednesday I backed up a little and tackled beryllium followed by sodium. I wanted to use sodium and chorine to get to NaCl, salt. The problem is Chlorine is complex. I tried to run to the concept of a Neon core, but that was perhaps a bridge too far for the students. 

I then turned back to methane, carbon dioxide, and water. I used the ptable displaying on the smartboard. I did manage to end with hydroxide and hydrogen ions. 


Thursday's lab opened with the brief review of on the far left side of the atomic underpinnings for acids and bases. Again this term I brought in sufficient Spathoglottis plicata to provide for the class. Only a couple students brought flowers. 



The right board at class start.


Mia works with Stella while Memichin tests for a color change due to a base

Again this term I used the dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride as the known base. This is stronger and more consistent than baking soda. The baking soda this term, being old, tested as neutral for all floral litmus solutions today. Baking soda seems to be a very weak base at best and prone to loss of potency.

Memichin testing their floral solution

Pevirleen holds a test tube for Renae as they work on the unknowns


Emleen makes notes while Wayne tests a solution


Emleen tests for whether the floral litmus solution changes color when exposed to a known base


Aryolynn and Darian identifying unknowns

Ruth records data as Aryolynn tests an unknown

Darian detects an acid while Ruth records results

Darian preparing test tubes

Alyssa, Ivy and Leriangelica test unknowns

Stella and Memichin work in the morning on unknowns

Pevirleen tests baking soda

Memichin runs tests while Mia records data


An 11:00 student brought in coleus, koromahd, which started off rosy brown with an acid detection being magenta and a base being lawn green. After a bit more boiling the starting color shifted to a darker reddish coloration near the X11 color Indian Red. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plotting polar coordinates in Desmos and a vector addition demonstrator

Image
In an earlier post I noted that Desmos did not directly plot polar coordinates. Not only was I incorrect, but Desmos responded to my blog to correct me! Although I had at some point seen that one could define a function f(x)=3x+5 and then have Desmos calculate f(6), I had not absorbed how this might be used to plot polar coordinates. The above works beautifully . Realizing that I could effectively program Desmos, I applied this thinking to demonstrating how to add two vectors when given the magnitudes m and the direction angles theta. The graph calculates the i and j components for the two vectors and then adds the vectors, graphically displaying the result while also providing information on the magnitude and direction of the vector sum. m1 and theta1 are the magnitude and direction angle for one of the two vectors, m2 and theta2 are the magnitude and direction for the other vector. All four are dynamically interactive and can be changed. The diagram purports to illustra
Read more

Setting up a boxplot chart in Google Sheets with multiple boxplots on a single chart

Image
The  Google Statistics  add-on for Google Sheets can display multiple boxplots in a single chart. The key is the layout of the data. One column should be the variable by which the data is to be grouped, the other column should be the data to be box plotted. Set up the Statistics add-on with the data to be plotted as the variable, and the grouping column as the "by" variable. In this image I had deselected all but the boxplot option, the result was the appearance of the Moment, Standard errors, and Confidence intervals options. The default is apparently a 95% confidence interval for the mean. The result is multiple boxplots on a single chart with a common scale. The new tab that is created also quotes 95% confidence intervals for the mean. Note that as of 2018 the Google Statistics add-on cannot be found by search in the add-ons. In addition, as of May 2018 the add-on no longer verifies, possibly due to the add-on not having been updated since August 2017. One may ha
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, one o
Read more